Saturday 30 January 2021

It Is More Blessed To Give Than To Receive

This verse is in Acts chapter 20 - Paul is preaching to the Christians in Ephesus and he reminds them that Jesus said this. Certainly in Luke 6:38, Jesus talks about giving. I have been so challenged by this in recent days. 

It was an absolute joy to visit a local Early Years group. Muddy Monkies is very close to Kingston Lacy. They'd asked on Facebook for 'unwanted baskets'. I'd found a huge box of them in the loft - so I contacted them and discovered they really need craft materials [the Scrapstore is shut]

They're forest-based, and have an outdoors Piklar Triangle, a campfire, an outdoor kitchen,a composting toilet, a reading shed....all sorts of great stuff. Also a bell tent, and the children were having their post lunch rest when I arrived, so I was given the full, covid-safe guided tour. [I didn't like to ask about the name] 

There were a dozen grey Oasis blocks in the loft. I advertised them free on Facebook - and was contacted almost immediately. The young woman explained she works with a group of adults with learning disabilities, and they love arranging flowers. So when she arrived I offered her a large sheaf of silk flowers too, along with some reels of floristry ribbon. She was delighted

Bob has a superfluity of technical gear. He cleaned up a complete system, removing all the personal data, then asked on our church WhatsApp group if anyone needed one. A member contacted us straightaway - she'd just been in a conversation with someone whose nephew's teacher* currently delivers worksheets to the home, because this family do not have a computer at all. When our friend collected it, she said it was amazing to see how fast the prayer had been answered.

It is exactly 20 years since the artist Michael Landy produced a drawing called "Break Down"

This represents the Art Installation he set up in the deserted C&A building in Oxford Street, He catalogued all his possessions [7227 of them] then they were loaded onto a conveyor belt, and as they went round the items were stripped down to their component parts and destroyed.5.75 tonnes of 'rubbish' sent to landfill. 45,000 visitors came to watch over the course of the fortnight's activity. And I guess ML made a lot of money out of the project.

I was appalled then, and I am still horrified by such waste. It does take longer to post these things on line, and then careful planning to arrange safe collection. It might seem easier to shove the surplus stuffing to black bin bags and send them to landfill. But I cannot do that. 

*God bless all those teachers out there, preparing online classes, delivering classroom  lessons- and providing extra resources for those children whose families lack the resources to get their children fully equipped to meet the challenge of education in this difficult time.





7 comments:

  1. I think it's wonderful that you are finding homes for all your treasures where they will be reused and recycled into some new useful purpose. Good job, Angela!

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  2. What a blessing to know that so much of your "no longer needed items" were so well received!

    As I continue to clear things out at home I try to do the same - although a bit trickier at the moment with so many things closed. I now put bags down in the laundry room for anyone to take - and things do seem to disappear quickly so hopefully they are of use to someone.

    When working in various offices I always boxed up binders, file folders, odd stacks of paper and many promotional items and sent them to local schools. These were all items that would have ended up in landfill for one reason or another (sometimes because the user was going to throw them out as they wanted to switch to a new colour of folder for a project and wouldn't reuse existing ones but insisted on new)!

    I have a pile of books and dvd's put aside to go to various friends once we are allowed to meet up again - and I know there are some books coming to me eventually.

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    1. Round here I have noticed more people leaving things on their lawns with "Free help yourself" signs. But they don't always think about this - a house down the road put out three rolls of wrapping paper recently, just before a heavy rainstorm.

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  3. Thank you for taking the time to do all this, I can well imagine how busy you are with your own move coming up.
    I was wondering if you have a huge house/manse when I saw how many hats you had?

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    1. We have been very fortunate over the years to live in large, lovely properties - so plenty of storage space[especially after the girls went off to Uni] So it has been easy to keep things 'just in case'. But is mostly just "Stuff" and I'm experiencing real joy in giving it away to grateful people.

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  4. It's wonderful that you are able to give away the things to people who will make the best use of them, Angela. You are motivating me to get rid of some of my own things. :)

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